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Standing to win only 22% of the vote in Thursday’s European elections, support for Gordon Brown’s Labour seems to be haemorrhaging. Traditional allies The Observer and The Guardian are now putting their considerable weight behind Britain’s third largest party, the Liberal Democrats. While the Observer in its Sunday editorial anoints it “the party with the most sensible EU agenda”, commentator Ilana Bet-El in its sister paper argues that Nick Clegg’s party “has worked best for the benefit of British citizens in Europe”. A centre-left movement, the Lib Dems consistently win 20% of the national vote, yet in political influence remain a victim of Britain’s first past the post voting system, holding 62 seats out of a total of 646 at Westminster.
